Someone to Watch Over Me

By George and Ira Gershwin
1926

For this, the momentous 500th post here at Standard of the Day, let's fondly recall one of the absolutely unparalleled gems of the Great American Songbook, from the incomparable brothers Gershwin. George originally envisioned the melody as uptempo, but after playing around with it, he thankfully realized it would work much better as a ballad (to say the least!) Ira's lyric is an anthem of longing and fragility, traditionally associated with a female voice ever since being introduced by Gertrude Lawrence in the Broadway musical, Oh, Kay!

Lyrics:

There's a saying old, says that love is blind
Still we're often told, seek and ye shall find
So I'm going to seek a certain lad I've had in mind

Looking everywhere, haven't found him yet
He's the big affair I cannot forget
Only man I ever think of with regret

I'd like to add his initial to my monogram
Tell me, where is the shepherd for this lost lamb

There's a somebody I'm longin' to see
I hope that he turns out to be
Someone who'll watch over me

I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood
I know I could, always be good
To one who'll watch over me

Although he may not be the man

Some girls think of as handsome
To my heart he carries the key

Won't you tell him please to put on some speed
Follow my lead, oh, how I need
Someone to watch over me.

Recorded By:
Frank Sinatra
Chris Connor
Sarah Vaughan
Sammy Davis Jr.
Ray Coniff

The Windmills of Your Mind

By Michel Legrand, Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman
1968

In honor of the great composer Michel Legrand, who passed away last Saturday at the age of 86, I'm spotlighting the song that was perhaps rivaled only by "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?" as his greatest hit. Written for the soundtrack of the Steve McQueen heist film The Thomas Crown Affair at the request of director Norman Jewison, it began life as a French song with lyrics by Eddy Marnay. Husband-wife lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman were brought in, and handpicked the haunting, circular melody from among Legrand's numerous compositions, adding lyrics meant to reflect the mental turmoil of the film's main character. Introduced in the movie by Noel Harrison, it won the Oscar for Best Original Song, and was performed by Sting for the 1999 Thomas Crown Affair remake.

Lyrics:

Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!

Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving in a half forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!

Keys that jingle in your pocket, words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly, was it something that you said?
Lovers walking along a shore and leave their footprints in the sand
Is the sound of distant drumming just the fingers of your hand?
Pictures hanging in a hallway and the fragment of a song
Half remembered names and faces, but to whom do they belong?
When you knew that it was over you were suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning to the color of her hair!

Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
As the images unwind, like the circles that you find 
In the windmills of your mind!

Recorded By:

Jose Feliciano
Dusty Springfield
Vic Damone
Jack Jones
Petula Clark

The Trail of the Lonesome Pine

By Ballard MacDonald and Harry Carroll
1913

Having now seen the excellent Stan and Ollie for the second time, I'm in a Laurel and Hardy frame of mind, which brings me to this old chestnut identified closely with the boys thanks to the unforgettable performance of it in their 1937 classic Way Out West. By that point, however, the tune was already an oldie, having been inspired by the 1908 novel of the same name. The favorite song of poet Gertrude Stein, it was first recorded by Albert Campbell and Henry Burr. Thanks to an upsurge in Laurel and Hardy popularity in Britain during the 1970s, Stan and Ollie's version rocketed all the way to the #2 position on the UK singles chart in 1975.

Lyrics:

On a mountain in Virginia stands a lonesome pine
Just below is the cabin home of a little girl of mine
Her name is June and very, very soon she'll belong to me
For I know she's waiting there for me neath that lone pine tree.

In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia
On the trail of the lonesome pine
In the pale moonshine our hearts entwine
Where you carved your name and I carved mine.

Oh, June - like the mountains, I'm blue
Like the pine - I am lonesome for you
In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia
On the trail of the lonesome pine.

Recorded By:

Manuel Romain
Edna Brown and James F. Harrison
The Dinning Sisters
Rex Allen
The Diamonds

Top Hat, White Tie and Tails

By Irving Berlin
1935

For the fifth time here at Standard of the Day, I'm spotlighting a song from Irving Berlin's Top Hat--and if that's not a testament to the film's greatness, I don't know what is. This time it's the movie's title number, performed with gusto by Fred Astaire, as so many Berlin gems were. With its internal rhyme and clever wordplay, the lyric is one of Berlin's most memorable, and became an iconic theme for the legendary Astaire, greatest of the on-screen dancers and the man who wore the attire better than anybody.

Lyrics:

I just got an invitation through the mails
"Your presence requested this evening
It's formal, a top hat, a white tie and tails"
Nothing now could take the wind out of my sails
Because I'm invited to step out this evening
With top hat and white tie and tails.

I'm puttin' on my top hat
Tyin' up my white tie
Brushin' off my tails
I'm dudin' up my shirt front
Puttin' in the shirt studs
Polishin' my nails

I'm steppin' out, my dear
To breathe an atmosphere 
That simply reeks with class
And I trust that you'll excuse my dust
When I step on the gas
For I'll be there
Puttin' down my top hat
Mussin' up my white tie
Dancin' in my tails!

Recorded By:

Louis Armstrong
Tony Bennett
Ella Fitzgerald
Mel Torme
The Boswell Sisters

You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me

By Sammy Fain, Irving Kahal and Pierre Norman
1930

Iconic Frenchman Maurice Chevalier was one of the leading film heartthrobs of the Depression era, and this song was one of the reasons why. Introduced by him in the romantic comedy The Big Pond, in which he sung it to the beautiful Claudette Colbert, the song is an ebullient love anthem, with a Kahal lyric that extols the virtues of the beloved in the manner of a Shakespearean sonnet. Chevalier's recording was a major hit, and was famously lampooned the following year by the Marx Brothers in Monkey Business, which features a scene in which the boys try to pass themselves off as the crooner to get through customs.

Lyrics:

If the nightingales could sing like you
They'd sing much sweeter than they do
For you brought a new kind of love to me

And if the sandman brought me dreams of you
I'd want to sleep my whole life through
You brought a new love to me

I know that I'm the slave, you're the queen
Still you can understand that underneath it all
You're a maid and I am only a man

I would work and slave the whole day through
If I could hurry home to you
You brought a new kind of love to me

Recorded By:

Frank Sinatra
Doris Day
Benny Goodman
Peggy Lee 
Vera Lynn

I Wanna Be Loved By You

By Herbert Stothart, Harry Ruby and Bert Kalmar
1928

An iconic number for the original "Boop-Boop-a-Doop" girl Helen Kane, who first performed it in the Broadway musical Good Boy, this infectiously cute number was the product of the legendary Ruby/Kalmar team (pictured) that had written for the Marx Brothers, among many others. Kane's rendition propelled her to superstardom, and was copied many times since, including by Betty Boop, the cartoon character she inspired, and by Marilyn Monroe, who memorably performed it in Billy Wilder's classic comedy Some Like It Hot. A young Debbie Reynolds, portraying Helen Kane in the 1950 Ruby/Kalmar biopic Three Little Words, also took a crack at this late Roaring '20s anthem.

Lyrics:

I wanna be loved by you,
just you and nobody else but you
I wanna be loved by you
alone--Boop Boop a Doop!
I wanna be kissed by you
just you, nobody else but you
I wanna be loved by you
alone

I couldn't aspire
To anything higher
Then to fill a desire
to make you my own

I wanna be loved by you,
just you and nobody else but you
I wanna be loved by you
alone

I couldn't aspire
To anything higher
Then to fill a desire
to make you my own
tada tada ta tada

I wanna be loved by you
just you, nobody else but you
I wanna be loved by you
Alone
Boop Boop a Doop!

Recorded By:

Annette Hanshaw
Sinead O'Connor
Frank Sinatra
Barry Manilow
Tina Louise

Yes! We Have No Bananas

By Frank Silver and Irving Cohn
1923

On January 1, for the first time in 20 years, a motherlode of intellectual property entered the public domain--books, songs, movies, etc. from 1923 are now available to use for free. Among them is this charming novelty song that was number one on the charts for five weeks in its original recording by Billy West. Interestingly, the melody has been identified by some as a combination of Handel's Hallelujah chorus, "My Bonnie", and a few other tunes. The lyric supposedly was written by Cohn as a tribute to a Greek fruit seller he knew who began every statement with, "Yes!" Despite not really being recorded much in the past 50 years, the song remains a part of popular culture, and has been referenced in The Simpsons, The Muppet Show, The English Patient and Mel Brooks' Dracula: Dead and Loving It ("Yes! We have Nosferatu. We have Nosferatu today!")

Lyrics:

There's a fruit store on our street
It's run by a Greek.
And he keeps good things to eat
But you should hear him speak!
When you ask him anything, he never answers "no".
He just "yes"es you to death, and as he takes your dough
He tells you
"Yes, we have no bananas
We have-a no bananas today.
We've string beans, and onions
Cabbageses, and scallions,
And all sorts of fruit and say
We have an old fashioned to-mah-to
A Long Island po-tah-to
But yes, we have no bananas.
We have no bananas today."

Business got so good for him that he wrote home today,
"Send me Pete and Nick and Jim; I need help right away."
When he got them in the store, there was fun, you bet.
Someone asked for "sparrow grass" and then the whole quartet
All answered
"Yes, we have no bananas
We have-a no bananas today.
Just try those coconuts
Those walnuts and doughnuts
There ain't many nuts like they.
We'll sell you two kinds of red herring,
Dark brown, and ball-bearing.
But yes, we have no bananas
We have no bananas today."

Yes, we are very sorry to inform you
That we are entirely out of the fruit in question
The afore-mentioned vegetable
Bearing the cognomen "Banana".
We might induce you to accept a substitute less desirable,
But that is not the policy at this internationally famous green 
grocery.
I should say not. No no no no no no no.
But may we suggest that you sample our five o'clock tea
Which we feel certain will tempt your pallet?
However we regret that after a diligent search 
Of the premises
By our entire staff
We can positively affirm without fear of contradiction
That our raspberries are delicious; really delicious
Very delicious
But we have no bananas today.

Yes, we gotta no banana
No banana
We gotta no banana today.
I sella you no banana.
Hey, Marianna, you gotta no banana?
Why this man, he no believe-a what I say.
Now whatta you want mister?
You wanna buy twelve for a quarter?
No? well, just a oneofadozen?
I'm-a gonna calla my daughter.
Hey, Marianna
You gotta piana
Yes, banana, no
No, yes, no bananas today
We gotta no bananas.
Yes, we gotta no bananas today.

Recorded By:

Eddie Cantor
Louis Prima
Benny Goodman
Spike Jones
Anthony Newley

Killing Me Softly With His Song

By Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel
1971

With the death late last month of Norman Gimbel, prominent lyricist of the 1950s-1970s, let's take a look at one of his most successful and controversial creations. The generation of "Killing Me Softly", one of the '70s most hypnotic and poignant ballads, is fraught with conflict: Singer-songwriter Lori Lieberman recorded the original version, claiming to have based it on a poem she wrote after being moved by a concert performance by Don McLean, which she then brought to Fox and Gimbel to turn into a song. Fox and Gimbel would later claim to have written the song with little input from Lieberman, and that McLean had nothing to do with it. This heated debate continued right up to Gimbel's death, with McLean recently reporting that he received a cease and desist letter from the lyricist regarding McLean's claims that the song was inspired by him. McLean maintains his version of the story to this day. Meanwhile, the most successful version would be recorded in 1973 by Roberta Flack, who took it all the way to number one for over a month.

Lyrics:

Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song

I heard he sang a good song, I heard he had a style
And so I came to see him, to listen for a while
And there he was, this young boy, a stranger to my eyes

Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song

I felt all flushed with fever, embarrassed by the crowd
I felt he'd found my letters and read each one out loud
I prayed that he would finish, but he just kept right on

Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song

Recorded By:

Johnny Mathis
Perry Como
The Fugees
Anne Murray
Shirley Bassey